Category: Italian

Cauliflower was on sale! I decided to make Cauliflower Steaks, after reading raves about them for years. Daniel brought me some rosemary and oregano from his garden, which added such a nice, fresh element to the oil mixture I brushed the cauliflower with. I served it with a simple chicken cutlet and salad.

Spray baking sheet with coconut or olive oil. Cut cauliflower into slices, trying to keep them intact so they look like tree silhouettes. Place on prepared baking sheet. Mix together olive oil, chopped rosemary and oregano. Brush both sides of the cauliflower steaks, and bake at 400 for 20 minutes, turning about half way through. Sprinkle with Parmesian (I used vegan) and serve! Yum yum!

I confess! In the interest of saving money, I’ve been shopping at Lucky’s and other stores promising good quality organic boneless chicken at lower prices than Fresh Market. This Little Big Meal offer called out to me, so I decided to splurge. Guess what? There really is a difference in the taste and texture. I will start shopping the Tuesday sale again religiously in the interest of better tasting chicken! This meal was super easy. The website said to fry the chicken up in a skillet with a little oil. Besides the fact that the thought of standing over a hot stove frying chicken didn’t appeal to me, it also sounded a bit greasy. I opted for a baked method and the results were amazing. I am on board every time they run this Little Big Meal deal.

1 Little Big Meal – which includes:

4 large butterflied chicken breasts with light breading

1 jar sauce (the LBM deal was for a brand called Lucini, but they were out – I chose Cucina Artica fresh spinach cooking sauce – very good straight from the jar, but I always taste and doctor it up)

1 package chop salad (again they were out of what it was supposed to be, so I got baby lettuce to make myself lunches for salad this week)

I also made some garlic bread from wonderful sourdough rolls I picked up at their bakery.

Line baking sheet with foil and brush with oil (I use a grapeseed sunflower blend).

Place chicken pieces on sheet and drizzle with oil. By the way, the picture is 1/2 of one of the chicken pieces, so it’s a lot of chicken.

Bake at 400 F, setting the timer for 10 minutes to rotate pan and check for even cooking.

Meanwhile, boil water for pasta and heat sauce in pan. I doctored the sauce with a couple splashes of sherry.

Chicken will be golden around the edges after about 25-30 minutes total cooking time. Remove from oven and spoon sauce over the pieces, reserving the remaining sauce to mix with the cooked pasta. After adding the pasta to the sauce, I added in 2 Tbsp. butter and 2 Tbsp. pesto.

Top chicken pieces with shredded cheese. I had a little 6 cheese Italian on hand, so I used that and some of the Mozzarella.

Return to oven and allow cheese to melt.

For the garlic bread, I mixed melted butter, oil, and Knorr creamy pesto mix and dipped the pieces of bread in it, and baked them first on the lower rack, and then switching out with the chicken towards the end.

The Little Big Meal sells for $20.00 and is supposed to feed four. We have some leftovers, so the kids are happy! It’s a lot of food. I also opted not to make a salad to go with, opting to use it for my lunches instead. I did purchase the rolls to make the garlic bread for an additional $4.00 investment in the meal.

All in all a success and a great reminder of why the Fresh Market chicken is worth spending a little more!

I bought some fresh gluten free lasagna noodles. It didn’t say how many sheets are in the package, so I worried that I couldn’t make enough layers, so I decided to try something new, inspired by pastitsio. By the way, the package has 12 sheets, enough for three layers!

I cook the sauce overnight in the crock pot. This step isn’t necessary, but it certainly adds another layer of flavor that can’t be replicated any other way.

Naan pizza is a great way to use up leftovers! It’s also a great way to throw together stuff that you can easily keep in the freezer. Quick weeknights were made for dinners like this!

Spray large sheet pan with coconut oil.

Place naan bread on pan and spray tops with coconut oil. Obviously olive oil spray would also work well. I didn’t have any on hand.

Separate leftover sauce over all of the breads to make sure you have enough. My sauce was a little watery, so I mixed in some Italian style bread crumbs to thicken it. I’m glad I did this, because I realized I was a little short, and added a little pesto to each before spreading. I then took some of the fat from the sausage that came out while it was defrosting and shook it in the pesto jar and spread that around the edge of each of the breads.

Grind up sausage in chopper until crumbly, or cut it by hand if you like bigger pieces.

Spread sausage evenly over all the breads.

Top with defrosted peppers – or any other veggies you have on hand! I can’t wait to try this with broccoli, cauliflower, beets, mushrooms, whatever!

Sprinkle cheese evenly over toppings.

Bake at 350 for 15-17 minutes.

ENJOY! I’m running to the store while the naan is still on sale and stocking my freezer for future experiments.

Today was food preparation Sunday. I did my shopping yesterday (following the great, inspiring sales this week), and prepared food today. The meatballs are a combination of several meats and I made them jumbo, like mini meatloafs.

3 lb. ground beef

1 lb. ground chicken

1 lb. ground turkey

1/2 lb. ground pork (optional)

2 tsp. baking soda mixed with 2 Tbsp. water

2 c. crumbled cornbread

2 eggs

1/4 c. sweet pickle relish

1/4 c. pesto

3 Tbsp. steak seasoning

1 lb. ricotta cheese

1 jar spaghetti sauce (I used Gia Russa)

4 oz. each ricotta salada and fontina cheeses, shredded

Combine meats with baking soda water and add in relish, pesto, seasoning, ricotta cheese, and seasoning.

Prepare 13 x 9 baking dishes by spraying with cooking spray.

Using large scoop, form meatballs and put into baking dishes sprayed with coconut oil.

Bake at 375F for 40 minutes until internal temperature is 165F.

Pour spaghetti sauce over cooked meatballs and top with shredded cheese. I used ricotta salada and fontina.

Meanwhile as part of food prep Sunday, I browned the remaining ground meats I bought (about 3 lb. total) to freeze and use in a future meal.

I bought a variety of sauces on a clearance sale at the local market and put boneless chicken breasts and thighs into large containers and coated them with the sauces and froze the chicken for future meals. I only used half of the meatballs I made for tonight’s dinner. I froze the rest for another night.

I served the Jumbo meatballs tonight with a tortelloni that was on a BOGO sale at my local supermarket. I also bought their spinach ricotta ravioli, and everyone loved the freshness of this delicate pasta. I will go buy more before the sale ends!

All in all, a successful food preparation Sunday, ending with a delicious, easy meal made of ingredients bought on sale!

Remove casing, cut into little pieces, and brown sausage. Add in fresh veggies and oil. Cover and cook over medium low until veggies are slightly softened (about 15 minutes). Add canned tomatoes and simmer about 15-30 minutes more over low.

I didn’t add seasoning, because the sausage and potatoes were seasoned.

Easy add ins: squash, mushrooms, cabbage, spinach, any veggie! A great way to use up leftovers! This could also be cooked in the crock pot, but I would still brown the sausage first to give it a nice crust.

I served this with quinoa and green lentils cooked in the rice cooker.

Like this:

Okay, so I am totally food obsessed and spent the last couple of days binge watching America’s Test Kitchen. I already know it will totally be worth it, even if I just try the Pasta alla Norchina! The picture above is from the America’s Test Kitchen website. I haven’t actually tried the complete recipe, but I have tried the trick about cooking the ground eat as a burger and then chopping it up and finishing the cooking of the meat in the sauce. I made a lasagna that had ground pork and turkey that were cooked according to the directions for the meat in this recipe and will never again suffer through chopping ground meat as it cooks with a spatula.

Here is the America’s Test Kitchen recipe for Pasta alla Norchina. If you get a chance to watch the video, it is worth watching!

4 tsp water

1 ½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. baking soda

Incorporate water, salt and baking soda into 1 lb. ground pork.

Let rest for 10 minutes

Add the following to the pork:

1 tsp garlic

¾ tsp. chopped fresh rosemary

¾ tsp. black pepper

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Smear the meat up against side of the bowl for approx 15 seconds to blend all the seasonings all the way through.

Form into large patty – place on greased dinner plate and set aside.

Place oz. cremini mushrooms in food processor and chop finely about 10 pulses.

Heat 2 tsp oil in skillet

Brown both sides of the pork patty, but leave raw in middle – about 2 minutes per side

Meanwhile cook pasta.

Transfer patty to cutting board and chop into fine pieces. Place in bowl and add ¾ c. heavy cream.

I have a new way of cooking spaghetti squash that is now going to be my go to! Puncture whole spaghetti squash with a sharp knife and place in crock pot with an inch of water. Cook overnight. In the morning, put the squash in the fridge. No more handling hot squash! Also, I read somewhere that cutting it crosswise instead of lengthwise is the way to go, and I agree.

When I got home from work, I put the squash on a baking sheet and baked it next to some zucchini @ 350 F for 20 minutes. I tossed them both with olive oil, a little pesto, some garlic, and cubed butter, and then roasted them. You could also sprinkle with Parmesan, but I was out.

The bolognese cooked in the crock pot all day. I cooked up ground meat and sausage and used the Gia Russa low sodium tomato basil sauce straight from the jar. Amazing how low the sodium, sugar and carbs are, and how amazing it tastes! No doctoring needed. 20 mg. sodium, 4 g sugar, 7 g carbs per 1/2 cup.